One of the best features of D&D Beyond was how easy it was to get little bits and pieces of content from different books without fully owning them. I've used this feature a lot, only buying magic items, monsters, spells, etc. from books that I already own physically just to have access to them on the character creator. So I was surprised today when I wanted to buy some monsters from the Yawning Portal book and found that it wanted me to buy the entire thing. I thought there was just a dropdown menu I was missing, but nope. They took away one of the best features of the Marketplace, and even took away discounts on books you already own content of.
This is absolutely ridiculous. Not only is this just blatantly greedy, but it makes D&D Beyond much worse. I already own these books physically, but find digital character sheets so much more convenient, and I was WILLING to pay EXTRA MONEY to have the character options, items, and monsters on this website for easier access to me and my players. The ability to do that for future books and parts of old books I didn't buy has been removed now. This feature NEEDS to be added back. The point of D&D Beyond was to be an easy way to access all D&D content, but they have just taken a huge step in the opposite direction. I don't even understand this decision, as the company is just going to lose money. They could have gained 10 bucks from me this morning for the monsters in Yawning Portal, but now they will get 0.
I am in complete agreement with you. I write all of my own campaigns, so it has never made sense for me to buy most of the adventure books, but I have always been very willing to spend $3-$10 on various monsters, spells, or subclasses that would fit well in my campaign settings. This change means the experience for me and my players will be worse, and they're getting LESS of my money, which just doesn't make sense. Does anyone know when this change happened? I'll admit I haven't used the marketplace for a few months, I just discovered this terrible update when I went to buy a few monsters for a new campaign.
As a fellow collector of physical books, usually the more expensive collectors editions, this decision completely alienated me. I never thought I'd seriously consider canceling my sub to dnd beyond and moving to another ttrpg entirely, but this decision to blatantly price out people who can't afford full books, or simply don't want to have to buy two copies of the same book in order to have a physical copy, shows a complete lack of care or consideration for their customers.
Posted this in another topic; but I feel like it's worth re-stating here: To harp on ONE of the issues at hand: the whole "you can still get your product discounts! You just need to contact customer service!" ... AND you need a seperate account to do that... But if THEY can access the list of "what I already own"... then why isn't that already integrated into the store front? We already HAD that feature; and lots of other sites do too; it isn't "too hard to implement" or anything.
Answer: this is a deliberate tactic; the same ones that subscription services like Netflix use to make unsubscribing from them just that little bit harder, take just that few more steps than it need to, all in the hopes that just continuing to pay the subscription; the path of least resistance; might be a net benefit in your busy life... Only here; it's putting up an extra barrier between you and savings you could have... or you could just pay full price and save yourself the headache! ... The fact that makes WOTC more money is just a happy side benefit!
... Overly cynical? Maybe? But it's usually a negative sign when companies start hunting in the couch cushions for loose change: because it means the revenue stream has gone a bit dry; and they're trying to get more by any means necessary. Anyone who has worked in an office knows that when the little luxuries, conveniences and quality of life features start to disappear; that's when to watch out.
I may understand the decision to enable the option to claim both the physical and digital version of a product. Despite a few people in the community was demanding that, a lot of us was really happy with the microtransation. I myself have bought sometime the physical and the digital version of product I really like. But other times I would happily buy a piece of the product rather than the whole one where I don't have any interest at all.
The thing that sucks is that they've got me. I pretty much rely on D&D Beyond to run my games, so if I unsub and go back to paper, there will be so much more work that I have to put into my games that I don't have time for. I would consider switching to something like Pathfinder, but I've talked to my players about that and we all really like D&D and don't want to learn a whole new system. Not to mention that I've switched to buying the newer books (Golden Vault & forward) digital only since they're 20 bucks cheaper, so if I went back to using only my book collection I'd have to go on a shopping spree. They've got me right where they want me and it sucks. Best I can do is just not support the older books and use free resources online where I can.
It's funny how they keep on pushing people to leave while cutting employees and giving people at the top millions in salary.
I have cancelled my sub when they decided to jump off a cliff last year, but was considering a return if I liked the "One D&D" books... But I guess they wont stop until they milk EVERYTHING. So F that and the greedy model they pursue.
A la Carte was a huge selling point and what made me like this site so much and recommend it to all of my DM friends and players. It allowed a much easier and way more affordable barrier to entry for those who were interested in the hobby. This just seems to be part of a massive trend by decision makers to squeeze as much money from its customer base while making the actual product worse. Maybe making it part of the subscription service or something in the future could be an acceptable middle ground but ultimately I am starting to wonder what this site even does better than its compition anymore.
It gets worse. If you purchased the Legendary bundle, a lot of books you own no longer carry the "you own this product" tag and it will allow you to purchase the content all over again.
They screwed the pooch on this one, they are hurting themselves just before they roll out their shiny new core books for 2024 one dnd update. The ability to pick up stuff a la carte style was this site's biggest boon for many of us who have budgets to be able to play the hobby. The old stuff should have been kept the same and now no one is going to care to buy their new material after being soured like this
This is such an unfortunate update. I was willing to spend the 1.99 to try out a silly spell or feat in game or one shot. This change also makes it exceedingly difficult to locate which book contains the spells, feats, classes I'm even interested in so it is too much of a risk to buy a $30 book for it not to have what I am actually looking for. I am now considering on going to other systems and playing around with going back to paper and google to create builds that I want to try.
What a sad day for DnD Beyond! I prefer to own physical books over digital ones for reading and perusing, however, to use the various creatures and items in the toolset one must own them in Beyond. Ala Carte' allows people to purchase the parts of the lore they need to use the tools for their stories and adventures. This incentivizes people to subscribe to the service in the first place. Without that option, people will buy *less* content, not more of it. Do they seriously expect everyone to buy bundles with both? How did that work out for the cable companies guys? Hasbro has ruined this platform.
I just saw this when I tried to buy a single magic item I wanted from an adventure book. Horrible decision. Being able to buy stuff by itself just for use in D&D Beyond was extremely nice. I don't care about everything else in the books because I have a custom setting and this just pushes me further into homebrew and other systems, and pushes me away from D&D in general. I do not have the money to shill out for stuff I don't need when I just wanted one $2 magic item.
It gets worse. If you purchased the Legendary bundle, a lot of books you own no longer carry the "you own this product" tag and it will allow you to purchase the content all over again.
It shows it right under add to cart if you already purchased it.
Once again corporate greed wins and the process of fleecing their own player base continues. My favorite aspect of D&D beyond was you could buy what you needed and more importantly, can afford.
They should be ashamed of themselves and I hope they enjoy their dwindling subscription based until this decision is reversed.
This! The combination of the lack of ability to purchase individual spells, classes etc, the lack of "you own this" tag on items purchased in a bundle and the inability to filter out stuff you already own is dire.
It's gone from "Hasbro are money-grabbers" to seemingly active attempts at deception in favour of squeezing more money out of players - gross.
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One of the best features of D&D Beyond was how easy it was to get little bits and pieces of content from different books without fully owning them. I've used this feature a lot, only buying magic items, monsters, spells, etc. from books that I already own physically just to have access to them on the character creator. So I was surprised today when I wanted to buy some monsters from the Yawning Portal book and found that it wanted me to buy the entire thing. I thought there was just a dropdown menu I was missing, but nope. They took away one of the best features of the Marketplace, and even took away discounts on books you already own content of.
This is absolutely ridiculous. Not only is this just blatantly greedy, but it makes D&D Beyond much worse. I already own these books physically, but find digital character sheets so much more convenient, and I was WILLING to pay EXTRA MONEY to have the character options, items, and monsters on this website for easier access to me and my players. The ability to do that for future books and parts of old books I didn't buy has been removed now. This feature NEEDS to be added back. The point of D&D Beyond was to be an easy way to access all D&D content, but they have just taken a huge step in the opposite direction. I don't even understand this decision, as the company is just going to lose money. They could have gained 10 bucks from me this morning for the monsters in Yawning Portal, but now they will get 0.
I am in complete agreement with you. I write all of my own campaigns, so it has never made sense for me to buy most of the adventure books, but I have always been very willing to spend $3-$10 on various monsters, spells, or subclasses that would fit well in my campaign settings. This change means the experience for me and my players will be worse, and they're getting LESS of my money, which just doesn't make sense. Does anyone know when this change happened? I'll admit I haven't used the marketplace for a few months, I just discovered this terrible update when I went to buy a few monsters for a new campaign.
As a fellow collector of physical books, usually the more expensive collectors editions, this decision completely alienated me. I never thought I'd seriously consider canceling my sub to dnd beyond and moving to another ttrpg entirely, but this decision to blatantly price out people who can't afford full books, or simply don't want to have to buy two copies of the same book in order to have a physical copy, shows a complete lack of care or consideration for their customers.
Posted this in another topic; but I feel like it's worth re-stating here: To harp on ONE of the issues at hand: the whole "you can still get your product discounts! You just need to contact customer service!" ... AND you need a seperate account to do that... But if THEY can access the list of "what I already own"... then why isn't that already integrated into the store front? We already HAD that feature; and lots of other sites do too; it isn't "too hard to implement" or anything.
Answer: this is a deliberate tactic; the same ones that subscription services like Netflix use to make unsubscribing from them just that little bit harder, take just that few more steps than it need to, all in the hopes that just continuing to pay the subscription; the path of least resistance; might be a net benefit in your busy life... Only here; it's putting up an extra barrier between you and savings you could have... or you could just pay full price and save yourself the headache! ... The fact that makes WOTC more money is just a happy side benefit!
... Overly cynical? Maybe? But it's usually a negative sign when companies start hunting in the couch cushions for loose change: because it means the revenue stream has gone a bit dry; and they're trying to get more by any means necessary. Anyone who has worked in an office knows that when the little luxuries, conveniences and quality of life features start to disappear; that's when to watch out.
I may understand the decision to enable the option to claim both the physical and digital version of a product. Despite a few people in the community was demanding that, a lot of us was really happy with the microtransation. I myself have bought sometime the physical and the digital version of product I really like. But other times I would happily buy a piece of the product rather than the whole one where I don't have any interest at all.
Mark me down as against this idiotic decision.
The thing that sucks is that they've got me. I pretty much rely on D&D Beyond to run my games, so if I unsub and go back to paper, there will be so much more work that I have to put into my games that I don't have time for. I would consider switching to something like Pathfinder, but I've talked to my players about that and we all really like D&D and don't want to learn a whole new system. Not to mention that I've switched to buying the newer books (Golden Vault & forward) digital only since they're 20 bucks cheaper, so if I went back to using only my book collection I'd have to go on a shopping spree. They've got me right where they want me and it sucks. Best I can do is just not support the older books and use free resources online where I can.
It's funny how they keep on pushing people to leave while cutting employees and giving people at the top millions in salary.
I have cancelled my sub when they decided to jump off a cliff last year, but was considering a return if I liked the "One D&D" books... But I guess they wont stop until they milk EVERYTHING. So F that and the greedy model they pursue.
Agreed. Another poor, anti-consumer decision. I will be purchasing less content as a result of this change, not more.
A la Carte was a huge selling point and what made me like this site so much and recommend it to all of my DM friends and players. It allowed a much easier and way more affordable barrier to entry for those who were interested in the hobby. This just seems to be part of a massive trend by decision makers to squeeze as much money from its customer base while making the actual product worse. Maybe making it part of the subscription service or something in the future could be an acceptable middle ground but ultimately I am starting to wonder what this site even does better than its compition anymore.
It gets worse. If you purchased the Legendary bundle, a lot of books you own no longer carry the "you own this product" tag and it will allow you to purchase the content all over again.
They screwed the pooch on this one, they are hurting themselves just before they roll out their shiny new core books for 2024 one dnd update. The ability to pick up stuff a la carte style was this site's biggest boon for many of us who have budgets to be able to play the hobby. The old stuff should have been kept the same and now no one is going to care to buy their new material after being soured like this
This is such an unfortunate update. I was willing to spend the 1.99 to try out a silly spell or feat in game or one shot. This change also makes it exceedingly difficult to locate which book contains the spells, feats, classes I'm even interested in so it is too much of a risk to buy a $30 book for it not to have what I am actually looking for. I am now considering on going to other systems and playing around with going back to paper and google to create builds that I want to try.
What a sad day for DnD Beyond! I prefer to own physical books over digital ones for reading and perusing, however, to use the various creatures and items in the toolset one must own them in Beyond. Ala Carte' allows people to purchase the parts of the lore they need to use the tools for their stories and adventures. This incentivizes people to subscribe to the service in the first place. Without that option, people will buy *less* content, not more of it. Do they seriously expect everyone to buy bundles with both? How did that work out for the cable companies guys? Hasbro has ruined this platform.
Party Wizard Forever!
Terrible decision to remove a la carte option. Just blatant greed by Hasbro. Let the downfall and backlash once again commence.
I just saw this when I tried to buy a single magic item I wanted from an adventure book. Horrible decision. Being able to buy stuff by itself just for use in D&D Beyond was extremely nice. I don't care about everything else in the books because I have a custom setting and this just pushes me further into homebrew and other systems, and pushes me away from D&D in general. I do not have the money to shill out for stuff I don't need when I just wanted one $2 magic item.
It shows it right under add to cart if you already purchased it.
Is there a way to hide the digital products you already own, anymore? I can't seem to find it
Please, for the love of the gods, tell me how am I to balance DnD with the family and my son's travel hockey? HALP!
Once again corporate greed wins and the process of fleecing their own player base continues. My favorite aspect of D&D beyond was you could buy what you needed and more importantly, can afford.
They should be ashamed of themselves and I hope they enjoy their dwindling subscription based until this decision is reversed.
This is absolute greed. Period.
This! The combination of the lack of ability to purchase individual spells, classes etc, the lack of "you own this" tag on items purchased in a bundle and the inability to filter out stuff you already own is dire.
It's gone from "Hasbro are money-grabbers" to seemingly active attempts at deception in favour of squeezing more money out of players - gross.